A friend works in a Left portal. She told me, there's panic at her office. The money has dried up from sponsors and there's no substantial public donations.
"It's a yellow light which will soon turn into red," she said while describing the financial health of the company
(Thread)
.................................................................................
She says that readers aren't inclined to pay for the content they read and Google Adwords pay paltry sums despite decent pageviews. So, incomes have dwindled to a minimum from Google Adwords and public donations.
The only saviours are patrons, client advertisements & paid content
.................................................................................
Patrons: Some patrons are not donating because they have restructured their budget allocations due to the pandemic. Obviously so.
Some have also decided to stop all donations now and divert funds towards public health, PM Cares etc which is in national interest.
Result: No money
.................................................................................
Paid content: That has stopped too. Most companies are concentrating on their showcase products and selling them online. None are launching new products or keen to create awareness about a product. News or awareness about a product (old or new) usually makes for paid content
.................................................................................
Client Ads: This is most interesting. Many companies are refusing to associate themselves with the portal because of their blatant anti-national content.
They are just not responding to sales pitches.
This is something that the portal never experienced before the pandemic hit us.
.................................................................................
Salaries: The top editors are paid large amounts (5 lakhs per month and upwards) when they are not bound by "exclusive" contracts. Meaning: They earn money from other sources.
Most of these editors haven't taken a pay cut and mostly don't do day-to-day work.
What do they do?
.................................................................................
They just sit there and tweet mostly. They write columns on the portal. They hobnob with the top management and organise editorial meetings.
These Edit Meets are nothing but long, elaborate discussions about being in nothingness. Or, a pep talk about an impending revolution.
.................................................................................
While most journalists are toiling and pushing themselves hard to get their content visible, these editors are not doing anything but giving elaborate gyans in meetings and wasting more time. Most don't even have an idea about the daily work flow.
Result: Massive discontent.
.................................................................................
Content: Page-views and hits have shown a massive decline. Repeated social media push aren't helping. This means the articles are not being read by new readers while old ones must have developed a fatigue.
Result: The content is not getting shared and less people are consuming it
.................................................................................
There have been salary cuts. Some journalists have been laid off while freelancers have been asked to stop contributing. The existing staffers have been asked to produce more content.
All this in the name of "things will get better" & "a revolution will come in journalism again"!